According to a new study, it's a myth that consumers only turn to their mobile devices for travel research. Mobile touch points like in-app ads and email can initiate the booking process and result in a full conversion. Trend: consumers spend more time in high quality apps that add real value to their “everyday.”

Opera Mediaworks surveyed 1,000 mobile users in the U.S. across our mobile ad platform to find out how they use their mobile devices for researching and booking flights, accommodations and activities.

The survey findings suggest that mobile is now #1 for travel research and booking among U.S. travelers. When asked whether they prefer to research on desktop or mobile, and 66% preferred mobile. And for booking, still 51% said they preferred mobile.

Opera Mediaworks took a look at the mobile-first habits and found that 45% rely on mobile apps when booking accommodations and activities; one in three travelers said that mobile apps like TripAdvisor and Yelp are their go-to resource when researching.

This is definitely part of a deeper trend of consumers spending more time in high quality apps that add real value to their “everyday.” In fact, travel apps are among the top 5 categories of apps where mobile ad campaigns are seeing higher levels of engagement.

But what is the mobile traveler’s path to purchase? What gets them from researching to actually booking accommodations and activities? That is the key answer that we wanted to answer for mobile marketers. Here’s what we found:

- One in four consumers that we surveyed said that an email announcement will initiate the booking process for them, and one in three say an ad with a special offer will initiate booking.

- Another one in three said the existence of booking apps (Southwest, JetBlue, Orbitz) on their device makes them more likely to book on their mobile device.

- Another third of travelers say that having research apps (TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.) would make them more likely to engage in travel activities, such as eating at restaurants, going to museums, events and more.

The cost to hotels for groups and meetings has been on the rise in the U.S. in recent years. According to a report from hotel benchmarking company Kalibri Labs, the cost, if left unchecked, likely will double by 2022.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has asked the FTC to investigate whether the airline industry is data mining consumer personal information in order to charge them airfares based on things like income and purchasing behaviors.

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